Abusive songs/chants at football: where the line really needs to be drawn

"Cristiano doesn't drink water", sang 200 Barça fans in an equally sarcastic tone a day before against Malaga. They'd been silent for the first 12 minutes of the game in protest after Barça were sanctioned over fan chants of ‘Ronaldo's a drunk’ a week earlier.

Welcome to the new world of Spanish football, when clubs are reported, fined or sanctioned if their fans sing naughty songs. It's a push towards a fantasy world of a puritanical football, where nobody says anything nasty inside a football stadium.

The Spanish Federation acted quickly following the death of a Deportivo La Coruna hooligan in a pre-arranged fight outside Atletico Madrid’s stadium in November. Acting with the government's commission against violence, racism. xenophobia and intolerance in sport, they want to rid the aforementioned from their stadia.

Football grounds have long been places of industrial language, both in the stands and on the pitch. David Beckham never mastered Spanish, but he did learn how to call a linesman a 'son of a bitch'.

Complaints have flooded in, taking clubs by surprise. Real Madrid fans singing about Lionel Messi in October's clasico drew complaints from a Catalan disabled federation which were accepted by the commission.

"Messi is a retard" they'd sung and "Supporting Barça is retarded". The commission sent the complaint to Madrid for them to respond. Though clubs feel singled out, Madrid banned 17 fans for singing the Messi and anti Catalan songs, an action which was fully supported by the La Liga president Javier Tebas.

He's become the focus for fan discontent on the issue, with Barça fans singing anti Tebas songs, for which their club could be fined. Songs from Barca fans at the Catalan derby and from Rayo and Betis fans have also been brought to the attention of the commission.

Sevilla fans were caught singing about their neighbours Betis being "sh*t" - just as they've sung for decades. Granada fans were calling the happily married Valencia striker Alvaro Negredo "a gay" in an attempt to unnerve him.

There's a strong lobby for wiping violence out, but Luis Enrique is among many who think that offensive chanting will not be banished from stadiums.

As a boy, the Barça coach used to stand near the ultras of his local team Sporting Gijon. He was once pictured in the section in a local newspaper and rushed to tear the offending page out before his parents saw it. He didn't want them to think that he associated with the ultras.

Fortunately, they didn't like football and he got away with it.

To Enrique, it was a passage in his life. He wasn't overly influenced by the Sporting ultras and didn't grow up to become a bad person just because he joined in with songs which may not have cast the neighbouring city of Oviedo in the best light.

Fans all over the world sing similar, often with good humour. They're offensive, but not homophobic or racist, anti-gay or anti-disabled.

Manchester United fans singing about Liverpool being "slums" where residents "look in the dustbins for something to eat, find a dead rat and think it's a treat" know that Scousers don't eat dead rats as a treat. It's viewed as a laugh.

And where should the line be drawn?

Was Cristiano Ronaldo really offended by being called a drunk? I doubt it a) because he's not b) because he's got far more going for him than the people singing it c) because he's heard much worse. Players often don't mind being singled out by away fans - it means they matter.

Football has long been a game where fans can let off steam. Society has changed for the better and the racist or anti Semitic chants I heard at matches in England as recently as the early 90s have all but gone.

You get a few a few idiots singing about Hillsborough, Munich, about Emmanuel Adebayor's parents washing elephants or Arsene Wenger being a paedophile, but they are a pitiful minority.

They might as well put a sign on their forehead saying: "I'm really, really thick and have gone to these desperate measures to bring attention to myself".

The authorities were right to act after the death and shine a light into club's relationships with their ultras. Too many clubs turned a blind eye because their presidents were in cahoots with the ultras - who were often their most hardcore fans. They were scared of them and would rather be kissing cousins with fascists than have a visit from them in the night.

But when does negative become offensive? Will it be punished if a player is called fat - and what if he is fat? Called a thief (what if he is?) or there's a suggestion that he's not quite playing to his full potential?

Will the Spanish league have a list of what's permissible and what isn't and is it right that a club could be punished because one freelance idiot says something he shouldn't and because the evidence is quickly uploaded?

It's a minefield, especially in a country where you can buy a 'gypsy's arm' (a cake, rather than a real gypsy's arm) and where the word 'negrito' can be considered a term of endearment.